


I Expect You to Dye

by teaandcharcoal



Series: Davekat Week 2017 [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Hair Dyeing, M/M, i'm kind of surprised that's a tag, oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 05:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11914089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaandcharcoal/pseuds/teaandcharcoal
Summary: One night Dave comes home with pink hair. Once Karkat realizes that's not a sign of some fatal disease, his curiosity is piqued. He wonders if he could pull off dying his hair too.Inspired by a lovely piece of fan art by ddeeric on TumblrWritten for Davekat week 2017. Day 7 (August 12) - Free Space





	I Expect You to Dye

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [dave dyes his hair pink and karkat feels inspired](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/319071) by ddeeric. 



> I can't resist a good pun. Or a bad pun. Like this title. 
> 
> The original image is here: http://ddeeric.tumblr.com/post/162994845590/dave-dyes-his-hair-pink-and-karkat-feels-inspired
> 
> I know I am really pushing the boundaries on tardiness for this event, but hey, there are 5 more pieces of fluffy davekat stuff in this world. So worst comes to worst that's okay, right?

There was something deeply, horribly wrong with Dave’s head, and Karkat had no idea what it was. Over the sweeps he had learned more and more about human physiology and culture. Living with them so closely for so long had given him an understanding and appreciation for them that very few trolls had, even on this new multi-cultural world. But, expert or not, he still had no idea what mechanic would have caused his matesprit’s hair to turn bright cotton candy pink overday.

So, in his usual collected and dignified manner, he nearly fell off the couch, bounced up to his feet, and screeched, “Dave, what the ever-living _fuck_ is wrong with your head?! Fuck, do you need to go to the hospital? Goddammit, where even is the nearest one that knows how to treat humans?!”

“Huh?” Dave ran his fingers over his face, like he was trying to clear off crumbs or smears of food. When his hand came away clean he gave Karkat an unimpressed look from over his shades. “Dude, was that an attempt at a prank? You gotta stop hanging out with Egbert and Crocker.”

“It was _not_ a prank! And it’s not on your _face,_ you complete nookstain!” Karkat tried to keep the desperation from sneaking into his voice. Something was clearly wrong with Dave and he didn’t even notice! What if it was fatal? Karkat had to get through to him!

“Huh?” Was Dave’s eloquent reply.

“Did you somehow not notice you complete-“ Okay, deep breaths Karkat. “Why is your fucking hair _pink?!”_

“Oh!” Dave pulled a lock of his hair down, stretching out the tight curls so he could look at it. “Yeah, I lost a bet with Roxy. But, you know, I actually think I kind of like it.”

“What did she do to you?” Karkat asked softly, trying to be gentle with his matesprit as he mentally prepared to rain holy retribution down upon the girl he had once called his friend.

Dave gave him a confused look. “Uh, she dyed my hair? Would have thought it was obvious.”

“It’s dead?! Oh fuck, is it all going to fall out?”

Dave barely held back a smile. “No, not die like dead, dye like color. Do you not have that?”

Karkat balked at him. “Of course we do! But your _hair?!_ Why would you do that?!”

He shrugged. “Well, like I said, I lost a bet, but most people do it for looks.”

“Huh,” Karkat said.

“Yeah. No big deal. And this stuff’s supposed to be temporary so it’ll be gone in like a couple weeks.”

Now that his panic had settled, Karkat was intrigued.

 “Can I... Can I touch it?”

“Yeah, sure.” Dave bent down slightly, letting Karkat run his claws through his hair. It didn’t feel any different from how it had before, still soft and wonderfully thick as ever. It was just... _pink._ He wondered if he could…

“Hey, do you think it would work on trolls?”

“Well, duh. We got this from the store just down the block. How is this even news to you? Didn’t Eridan do his bangs?”

“No! He had hyperchlorophoria, and it’s rude to talk about that!”

“What the hell is that?”  

He crossed his arms. “It’s an auto-immune disease kind of like... what’s that thing Drik has that gives him pale spots?”

“Vitiligo?”

“Yeah, like that. But for hair.”

“Huh.” Now it was Dave’s turn to look perplexed.

“I mean, it’s more common now, obviously,” Karkat muttered, “It only makes sense, given how much Eridan contributed to our new gene pool.”  

“Well, sorry to Eridan’s ghost, I guess,” Dave said. “But did you wanna try it?”

“I... sure.”

Dave smiled. “Well, then, let’s go pick something out.”

The two of them went off into the night, walking the dimly lit streets on their way to the corner store. It was nearly dawn, time for most trolls to head to sleep. The good news was that meant the store was completely dead. A sleepy oliveblood stood behind the counter, barely looking up from her phone as the doors swung open.

“So what color were you thinking?” Dave asked as the two of them crossed the threshold.

“I…” Karkat paused. “I don’t know.”

“Come on dude, you wanted your hair to be a color but you had no idea what it was?”

He blushed and bristled, ears tipping downward and baring his teeth. “Shut up, Dave!”

“Okay, okay.” After a few years, Dave learned when not to push it. Judging from the sheer number of angry signs, this was one of those times. “If I remember right it’s near shampoo and stuff, so like riiight here.” 

And there it was. There were a few brands, all of them displaying the entire hemospectrum, plus a few random extras.

“Anything catch your eye?” Dave asked.

“I…” Karkat’s eyes moved back and forth, raking across the shelves. “There’s not really a gray, is there?”

“Yeah, from what I understand most people do their blood colors. Or one of their quadrantmates’ blood color.”

“Oh,” Karkat’s gaze paused right on the candy red.

Hoo boy, it was about to be baggage time. Avert! Avert! “Of course you don’t have to! Like I was thinking maybe you’d want to do pink so we’d match, or just bleach it altogether, although we do just have bleach at home, and-“

“Are… Do you know if a lot of mutants dye their hair red?”

Dave was slightly taken aback. Was he really considering… “I mean, as many as anyone else as far as I’ve noticed. Of course it might have been the hypoco… hypochlor… hair vitiligo. But I think it’s probably mostly intentional.”

Karkat paused for a moment thinking it over. Then he slowly, gently reached out his hand and grabbed the box. He took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Then with his chin up in defiance much greater than that required to buy a damn box of hair dye, Karkat strutted up to the counter and slammed down a twenty.

“Alright,” the cashier said, not even bothering to put on the customer service voice. “That’ll be $11.36.” She counted out his change and handed it to him.

Karkat grabbed it and strode out of the store comically solemn. Dave gave the girl a curt wave and followed his partner. He waited to speak until the doors were safely shut behind them to speak.

“You know, if you’re this worried, you don’t have to do it.”

“We already bought it, didn’t we?” Karkat snapped. “And it’s not…” he swallowed. “It’s not like it’s anything to be ashamed of here, right?”

Dave placed one hand on his shoulder and offered him a comforting smile. “Right.”

“Let’s just go home and do this before I lose my nerve.”

“Got it,” Dave said.

They hurried home like they were a couple of teenagers who bought condoms for the first time, rather than a couple of grown-ass men with something innocuous as hair dye.

Dave pulled out some spare towels as Karkat tore the box open and began obsessively reading the instructions.

“Chill, dude, it’s fine. Like I said before, not a big deal.”

“Oh? And how many time have you done this?” Karkat snapped.

“I mean… technically… Roxy did mine. Uh, but it really doesn’t seem hard.” He took the slippery sheet from Karkat. “Yeah, okay. Put gloves on, mix one and two, shove it on your head, then mix three and four and repeat.”

“If you fuck this up and make me shave my head I’m not sleeping with you until my hair grows back.”

“That’s fair.”

“Alright,” Karkat said. He sat down backwards on the closed toilet, straddling the seat. “Let’s do this.”

“You got it,” Dave replied carefully tucking the spare towel around his boyfriend’s shoulders. 

Once he was sure Karkat’s shirt was covered, Dave popped open two of the bottles and started mixing up the bleach. Every muscle in the troll’s body was tense. Normally Dave could make him melt into a puddle in about a minute and lull him to sleep in five more, but this time it seemed as though every stroke of Dave’s fingers wound Karkat tighter and tighter.

“It’s okay,” he said softly, letting Karkat hear that sweet, gentle voice Dave reserved just for him and small animals when he thought no one was looking. “If you want to stop we can stop.”

“What, and end up with a half-white head? Forget it.”

“Okay. But if you really get freaked out, I’m happy to back off. We’ll go to a professional and see if they can redye it black or cut it so it looks badass or something.”

Karkat swallowed. “Okay.”

“And you’re gonna look sexy, I know it.”

“Okay,” he repeated.

He didn’t sounds convinced, but some of the tension started to drain from his muscles. Soon enough, Dave had Karkat’s thick, short hair fully saturated in the bluish bleach solution. The second he proclaimed he was finished, Karkat hopped up. He clutched the towel tightly, holding it around his neck.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Dave asked for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Fucking peachy!” Karkat snapped.

“Do you think…” Dave chose his words carefully, not wanting to agitate him further. “it would help if you saw more candy reds flaunting their color? Like just to remind you it’s okay.”

The beginning of a retort was clearly forming on Karkat’s lips, but then Dave’s suggestion began to seep in. “Maybe.” Karkat grumbled something else to himself and pulled his phone from his pocket.

“And, hey, if you start now maybe you’ll have your mind made up in the next 30 minutes while we wait for this to sink in.”

Karkat just flipped him off and started typing away.

Dave rolled his eyes and opened up a stupid game about popping bubbles. The next thing he knew the timer was going off. Dave looked up from his screen and woah, that worked well. Looked like his hair was almost pure white.  

“I rinse this out next, right?” Karkat asked nervously, snatching the instructions back up.

“Yep. Want help?”

“Huh?”

“Kneel down next to the tub.”

Karkat looked at him confusedly but then did as he said. Dave took the handheld sprayer and got the water going. “Close your eyes.”

“Oh, right. Shit.” Karkat actually lifted one hand to cover his eyes. Fuck he was cute.

“Alright, here goes.” Dave lifted his hand and carefully, gently started working his fingers through Karkat’s hair. The bleach stuff was gritty and gross, but once most of it was out, he was treated to flawless feeling of freshly-washed Karkat hair.

“Damn, you know you’re like… basically Strider-blonde, right? I kind of like it.”

Dave couldn’t see Karkat’s cheeks, but he didn’t miss the way that the very tips of his ears were turning red. “And here I thought your species was afraid of the whole ‘incest’ thing!”

“What? Not like that! I’m just saying we could totally go out and be _that_ couple. All matchy and shit.”

“Oh fuck no.”  

Dave snickered to himself and turned the water off. “You’re clean, by the way.”

“Oh, thanks.” Karkat blindly reached out, groping for his towel. Dave decided to show some pity and hand him a fresh one.  

“So, uh, you ready for step two?” He asked as Karkat dried his hair.

Karkat pulled the towel away. “That, uh… That’s the red part, right?” He ran his fingers nervously across the edge of the towel.

Dave shrugged. “I mean, if you changed your mind you can stay blond. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Well, let me look first.” Karkat got to his feet and stared at himself hard in the mirror. “I mean, it’s not really blond, more of like a really, really pale gray. It looks weird like this.”

Dave shrugged. “Like I said, totally up to you.”

Karkat picked up the half-empty box and looked at it hard for a moment. Then he closed his eyes, set it down, and straddled the toilet again. “Do it.”

“Okay, last time, you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Alright. Let’s do this.” Dave pulled on the second pair of gloves and popped open the actual dye. “You’re gonna look super hot, by the way.”

“Yeah, you’d think that anyway.” Even if he was facing away, Karkat’s eye rolling came through loud and clear.

“Don’t make it not true.”

He dumped the first glob right in the middle of Karkat’s scalp.  The troll shuddered.

“It’s okay, dude.”

“I know! It just… feels weird.”

“Oh yeah, that might be the chemicals or something. If it starts burning we should stop and rinse it out right away.”

Karkat violently jerked his head away. “What?!”

“Yeah, technically there’s usually a warning about trying it on a small patch of skin first, but nobody _really_ does that.”

He groaned but leaned back into Dave’s touch. “You’re going to be the fucking death of me.”

“Yeah, I love you too.”

 It was always so relaxing to work Karkat’s hair. It didn’t matter if it was wet or dry, if it was with nothing or shampoo or this stuff. Yeah, it was nice to just touch him and all, but more than anything Dave loved the way Karkat melted, purring up a storm in spite of himself as Dave massaged his scalp. So maybe he spent a little more time than necessary making sure he had every strand of hair covered. Not like Karkat noticed. The entire time his eyes were on his phone, double and triple checking that, yes, there were candy-blooded celebrities and, yes, sometimes they died their hair read and, no, no one tried cull them or even really thought twice about it.

“Okay,” he said once he was satisfied. “Now we wait.”

Karkat nodded. “How long this time?”

“Bout half an hour. Wanna watch some TV?”

“No.” Karkat stood. “Actually, I want to look.”

“Okay, sure.” Dave backed off, giving Karkat space to approach the mirror.

His hair was darker than it looked on the box. Probably because it was still wet. Wet and _heavy._ It was plastered down, even though Dave had smoothed his bangs back so as not to dye his forehead. But honestly, it wasn’t bad. Weird, but not bad.

“What do you think?” He asked Dave.

“I mean, we’ll have to wait until it sinks in. And then we’ll have to rinse it out, and let it dry to get the full effect, but I think you’re gonna look cute as hell.”

“If you say so.” He nibbled the inside of his cheek.

“Hey,” Dave grabbed his shoulders. “I say so.”

The next half hour went agonizingly slowly for Karkat, even with Dave reminding him that if it was really that bad he could always shave his head and wear a beanie for a few weeks or months or whatever. Hell, if they wanted they could alchemize him a nice wig. But every minute that passed, Karkat just found himself praying harder and harder that it would actually work.

And then when the time was up he _still_ wasn’t done waiting. It took Dave about three hours to get the water to run clear. Of course, Karkat wouldn’t know when it was. He had his eyes squeezed shut, desperate not to let any of the chemicals get in. So he just sat there listening to the sound of the shower and feeling the water buffet the back of his head as Dave kept working his hair throughout the rinse.

Then, just about when he was ready to fucking fall asleep leaning over the tub, Dave turned off the water and said. “Okay. I think that’s it.”

He plopped a new, clean towel down on top of Karkat’s head, which Karkat took that as his invitation to dry off. It never took long for Karkat to dry his hair. It just wasn’t absorbent the way Dave’s was.  But even when he was done he kept the towel wrapped around his skull.

“What’s up?” Dave asked.

“We’re seeing this together,” Karkat said.

“You got it,” Dave replied, smiling softly. He took a step back, letting Karkat walk up to the mirror.

“Alright, you ready?”

“Babe, don’t be nervous. You got this.”

“Okay, one, two, three.” He pulled the towel back and _holy fuck that was bright._

Dave whistled. “Dude, _nice.”_

“I mean,” Karkat ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s definitely the right color.”

“Yeah. Really brings out your eyes.”

He was right. Karkat’s irises had been almost offensively bright for years, but now they were like glowing coals set into his skull. He was _red,_ he was so fucking red.

“So?” Dave asked nervously. “How do you feel?”

“Well… not used to it,” he admitted, stepping back. “But I think we could get there.”

Dave grinned. It was one of the big goofy ones that he would only allow himself to give at home. He threw his arms around Karkat and pulled him close, gently nuzzling his cheek.

“Good. Because I was right. Cute as hell. No, cute as fuck. Hell wishes it could be that cute.”

Karkat snorted. “You are such a suck up.”

“No, I mean it. I really do.” Dave gave him a little kiss on the cheek and Karkat wrinkled his nose.

“Stop being so pale, darn it!”

“I mean, I could probably get a little darker, but that would involve going out during the day, so like-“

Karkat rolled his eyes and left the bathroom. As he did one lock of bright red hair fell in front of his eyes. By the time he pushed it back, he had already started feeling like this would be perfectly fine.


End file.
